The Massachusetts Medical Society recently reversed its long-held opposition to physician-assisted suicide. A psychiatrist notes many physicians are painfully conflicted about participating.
Symptoms of an illness usually improve the closer a person gets to dying.
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Excruciating pain at the end of life is extremely rare. The evidence shows pain and other symptoms, such as fatigue, insomnia and breathing issues, actually improve as people move closer to death.
Victoria’s Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury and Finance Mr Daniel Mulino voted against the state’s assisted dying bill.
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Lindy Willmott, Queensland University of Technology; Andrew McGee, Queensland University of Technology e Ben White, Queensland University of Technology
The main arguments used by those who voted against assisted dying – including that the bill has insufficient safeguards – in Victoria’s upper house, deserve further scrutiny.
Palliative care patients talk far more of life than of death.
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Australia has few public rituals around death, leaving people to figure out how to process grief alone. But Mexico’s Day of the Dead, with its focus on art and community, could help us cope better.
Caring can be very rewarding for both the carer and the patient.
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While there are similarities in the general principles of palliative care provided to children and adults, there are also key differences.
Palliative care involves a team of specialised health professionals who provide an extra layer of support to the person and their family.
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One would think governments would do all they could to ensure palliative care is available to all who need it. This is not the case in Australia today.
Doctors have to deal with death every day. It’s not easy to come to terms with it.
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Teaching students to care for the dying requires specific skills that the student may not encounter in their ordinary clinical teaching.
Medical assistance in dying has been legal in Canada since July 2016, but there are no ‘specialists’ responsible for doctor-assisted suicide and many doctors are overwhelmed with requests.
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More than 2,000 Canadians have chosen medical assistance in dying (MAID) since legalization in 2016. But palliative care doctors aren’t embracing assisted suicide as part of their job.
Respecting the autonomy of young people in their health-care choices is important.
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The Victorian law provides if a child has made a valid advance directive including instructions to refuse a particular medical treatment, a health practitioner must not provide that treatment.
Dying at home isn’t necessarily a good death.
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Millions of people are affected by death and dying – but politicians don’t want to talk about it.
Assisted dying legislation is likely to be introduced in Victorian Parliament within a month, and be based on a report launched today by Brian Owler and Jill Hennessy.
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Ben White, Queensland University of Technology e Lindy Willmott, Queensland University of Technology
Public opinion, shifting views in the health profession and international trends allowing assisted dying mean it will be lawful in Australia at some point. But will it be lawful in Victoria soon?
There are very few palliative care facilities in Africa.
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Imagine this situation: a person has no medical illness but wishes to end his or her life purely because he or she no longer wishes to live. Should they be eligible for euthanasia or assisted suicide?
Knowing how to communicate about death gives us the language to discuss end-of-life topics with our loved ones.
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We use euphemisms about death and dying to soften the blow of the real words, or because we feel awkward being direct. But this can lead to misunderstanding and confusion.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne